Inside The Old Dark House: A Poem

Inside The Old Dark House: A Poem



An old abandoned farmhouse
an old country road
old signpost pointing to an old prairie town no longer there
sound of a dog barking
but no dog there
its bones long turned to dust
The hum of an engine running
in the old Chevy truck
no longer on wheels
and no longer with engine
sounds echoing from a distant past
maybe not so distant
the distant yesterday
that was our grandparents' today



Inside the windows of the house
curtains laced with dust
the calling card of decades of neglect
cobwebs cover old photos
of a time when pictures were seen on walls
and not computer and smart phone screens
pictures with memories
memories of people no longer here
and people possibly no longer remembered
Old stove
powered by wood and flame
and not the push of a distant remote button



Up the old creaky stairs
to old bedrooms
Beds buried under old sheets
as abandoned as the house itself
On the dresser
the ticking of an old clock
that no longer ticks
both hands frozen at the same time
12 o' clock
whether noon or midnight it now forever shows no one knows
but then again no one now sees
so no one cares whether it shows
the high noon of a forgotten yesterday
or the midnight of a new day that never came



Down the old creaky stairs again
to the parlour
on the mantle above the old fireplace
a radio with broken dial
and broken tuner
and a dead lifetime warranty battery




No sound can be heard
and yet a distant voice
a voice from a long distant yesterday of the late 1930s
a voice speaking in German
"We are satisfied with just the Sudetenland"



And in the center of the room
an old television
a giant of a thing
a dinosaur from a prehistoric age of electronics
"RCA- it's our latest"
today it would seem so last week
which by this minute and today's standards is indeed so last millennium
a set whose voice would say "I love Lucy"
and "we've got a really big shoo for you this evening... a really big shoo"




A TV that ran on an antenna
no cable or satellite here



The phone rings it seems
on a phone attached to a plug in the wall
a plug eaten away by time... and rodents...
tied in to a phone line swept away by the winds... the wind of the prairie.. and the wind of change...



The old radio creaks once again in German,  "We are satisfied with just the Sudetenland" ...



The old television with its old antenna seems to momentarily blip on...
... picking up a signal from today...
... in one of those strange moments in time...
... where it seems yesterday and today and tomorrow meet and intersect...
in some eternal now...


"We have no interest in taking Ukraine" the smiling bald- headed man assures the world in Russian
as the radio spits and sputters in German
and the phone continues to ring...




... Perhaps there is something the past can still tell us...
... if we have ears to hear..



... The dog barks...
... The clock ticks...
... And the hands show 12...




- A poem written by Christopher
  Sunday March 30th 2014.


Sent from my iPhone